Honored by Governor David A. Paterson and the State of New York for his “legacy of leadership to the Asian American community and the Empire State” in 2010, Taiyo Na is a singer, songwriter, MC, producer and actor. He was last seen as "Min" in Dennis Kim's play Tree City Legends, which was directed by Marc Bamuthi Joseph and enjoyed a 3-week sold out run at San Francisco's Intersection for the Arts (Spring 2012).

Taiyo's debut album Love Is Growth (Issilah Productions, 2008) established himself as “a multidimensional talent with a unique creative voice that fuses the rhythms of the city that raised him with the soul of the Asian immigrant culture that birthed him” (OkayPlayer.com). The album features the song “Lovely To Me (Immigrant Mother).” Heralded by MTV Iggy as “the realest thing seen in a while,” the music video/short film to the song was directed by Gary San Angel in 2009 and has screened at film festivals around the world.

Taiyo’s second full-length record Home:Word (Home:Word Sound, 2010) was a collaboration album with California-bred hip-hop group Magnetic North and includes the singles and music videos “Summertime,” “I Got My," “New Love" and “Home:Word," which was directed by Wong Fu Productions. In March 2011 the title track was released in Japan as part of the compilation In Ya Mellow Tone 6 (Goon Trax/Media Factory), and the song hit #2 on Japan's iTunes Hip-Hop charts. Home:Word was rereleased as a deluxe album - remastered and repackaged with an exclusive lyric booklet and 6 additional songs in November 2011, correlating with the release of the Japan edition of Home:Word which hit #3 on Japan's iTunes Hip-Hop album charts. “Fukushima," the first single from the deluxe edition, was released as a lyric video on September 11, 2011.

Born and raised throughout New York City, Taiyo first started writing rhymes at age 13 with the encouragement of high school and neighborhood friends. This passion for language, heart and rhythm led to an early journey into spoken word poetry, performing nationally with the New York-based feedback poets’ collective (2000-2003) which featured Def Poetry Jam on Broadway’s Beau Sia and Former Queens Poet Laureate Ishle Yi Park. By the time he was 18 years old, he had shared stages with Maya Angelou and Janice Mirikitani, and at age 19 was selected as one of the “25 Best Emerging Artists Under the Age of 25” by New World Theater’s Intersection Conference in 2002.

Other notable accomplishments include a guest performance for Helen Zia’s Asian American Renaissance Conference (2005), two featured concerts at Lincoln Center (2007 & 2008), two appearances on Kevin So’s celebrated album A Brighter Day (2007), an opening performance for 9-time Grammy Award-winning Eddie Palmieri at the Beyond Race Conference (2007), a performance for Kollaboration New York (2009), an appearance on Cynthia Lin's third album Microscope (2010) and a promotional song for Paul Griffin's young adult novel Stay With Me (2011).

As an educator, Taiyo has led workshops and courses in the arts for youth for over a decade. A formally trained actor, he holds 2 years of study at the legendary Robert X. Modica’s Acting Studio at Carnegie Hall. He was a host for the 2006 NAMIC Vision Award-winning Cinema AZN show on the now defunct Comcast channel AZN TV. He was also Artistic Director of the Sulu Series as well as Entertainment host for Asian America (WNYE), a weekly Public Television show syndicated by PBS.

Photo by Brian Cleaver

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contact: taiyo@taiyona.com